


XXX

by Little Spoon (JaydenNara)



Series: Occasionally Domestic [24]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Anchor Stiles Stilinski, Banshee Warning, Blizzards & Snowstorms, College Student Stiles, Control Issues, Derek Deserves Nice Things, Derek Hale Takes Care of Stiles Stilinski, Established Relationship, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hypothermia, M/M, Mates, Naked Cuddling, Nudity, Protective Derek, Sharing Body Heat, Stiles Stilinski is Derek Hale's Anchor, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 17:24:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13506288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaydenNara/pseuds/Little%20Spoon
Summary: Stiles never had the best sense of direction, but he managed. More often than not, he called Derek because he knew his boyfriend would always find him. But when Stiles and Derek decided to spend the full moon at the cabin upstate, the blizzard of the century hits, and it hits hard.Wandering around the city and maybe asking for directions is one thing, but whiteout conditions in dense, semi-familiar woods is another. Neither of them ever saw it coming.





	XXX

The snow fell heavier than an hour ago when Derek had dropped Stiles off at their cabin. He’d transferred the title to his and Stiles name while he was dealing with Laura’s estate after putting it off for so long, and planned to surprise Stiles with the news tonight as an early Valentine’s gift because Stiles loved the safety and seclusion their home away from home offered. Home being their cozy one-bedroom loft on the upper west side near Stiles' college where they continued the tradition of sleeping in the main room rather than using the loft.

The wipers furiously beat back the fat fluffy flakes that swirled around the car. Derek couldn’t see more than six feet beyond the windshield as he crept along the long drive of the cabin. If it wasn’t for the chains on the Camaro, he would have slid off the road long ago, supernatural reflexes or not.

The drive up from the city had been a nightmare when they hit the storm front just outside of Albany. They’d decided to spend the full moon before Valentine’s Day together at the cabin and driven up from the city immediately after Stiles’ Thursday afternoon class. In fact, Stiles had sprinted out of the building, jumped into the front seat of the Camaro, and screamed: “punch it, Chewie!” And Derek, because he loved the adorable idiot, had growled, flashed a little fang, and burned rubber tearing out of the parking lot.

Just outside of the city limits, Stiles had rewarded him with spectacular road-head that nearly resulted in them getting pulled over. Definitely worth it.

The weather hadn’t called for snow. The forecast hadn’t even mentioned clouds. Meteorology was more unpredictable than the ever-shifting future of fortune-telling, so what did the channel six weather anchor really know. Nothing, apparently because there was now over a foot and a half of snow, and growing.

The shadow of the cabin loomed ahead through the blizzard. The light of the lit windows glowed eerily as it cut through the whiteout conditions. The cabin didn’t have central heating, which Derek planned to remedy if Stiles’ father decided to retire across the country like Stiles had been hinting, but for now, the fireplace was the only heat source. In the summer, the cabin remained perfectly cool built on a stone foundation, but winter provided a challenge, and also a romantic atmosphere to lay Stiles out on the rug and aggressively blend their scents until his boyfriend was a shivering mess of loose limbs.

Derek pulled up as close to the front porch as he possibly could. The icy cold slapped him across the face like an angry frost nymph, also Stiles’ fault, as he flung open the door. Stiles had promised to get the fire going and unpack before he emailed his professors that he may be trapped upstate for the week while Derek made a run to the nearest grocery store for emergency supplies to outlast the storm. Snagging the bags of food out of the passenger seat, he made a break for the front door. His converse, a gift from Stiles for his birthday, crunched in the snow. He stopped short on the front porch.

The front door was wide open.

Every light in the cabin was on. The windows glowed cheerfully in the gloom, but there was no familiar steady heartbeat inside. Not trusting his senses in the midst of the latest ‘storm of the century’, Derek rushed into the cabin.

“Stiles?” Derek called. The groceries were abandoned beside the door without a second thought. “Stiles?”

Scrunched balls of newspaper were surrounded by shaved kindling in the fireplace, and a box of matches sat ready and waiting on the ground beside the hearth. But there was no wood.

The cabin was empty. Stiles must have gone out to the woodshed out back. The cabin was an icebox. The door had been left open much longer than the short trip to the shed would take. But then again, Stiles was human. He knew the property well after many trips up for the full moon over the years, but he didn’t have the benefit of Derek’s senses to combat the whiteout conditions. It was dangerous for Stiles to be outside, especially with the storm growing worse with each passing moment. The temperature had dropped even in the short amount of time Derek had spent searching for Stiles in the cabin. He pulled the bright red scarf that Stiles’ had laughingly wrapped around him before he climbed out of the car earlier up over his nose to fend off the icy chill stinging his nose.

Hunched over, Derek fought his way to the shed. The snow was too heavy. Any footprints had already been covered and swept away. The only sound to be heard was the roar of the wind and creaking of the frozen trees. Snow pelted Derek. His senses were impaired.

The wind died down enough as Derek entered the woods behind the cabin that Derek could detect the hint of pine and cedar that guided him through the snowstorm to the woodshed a short distance into the woods. The door was closed, and the lock was frozen shut. The small structure also lacked the scent he sought.

Derek turned back, anxious for a new sign or clue as to where his wayward boyfriend was, but the only response was the whistle of the wind through the bare branches. Ripping the scarf off, Derek tied it around the nearest tree as a marker. If Stiles was lost in the woods, maybe he would catch sight of the bright colour and it would guide him home. He stripped down, carelessly tossing his clothes into the snow, until the frigid air bit at his skin. Rolling his shoulders, he allowed the shift to take over.

All four paws hit the snow at a dead run, and Derek raced deeper into the forest. He tracked in a grid pattern, circling back to use the cabin as a base. But he found no trace of Stiles.

On his fourth circuit, Derek caught a whiff of a faint metallic scent he recognized all too well; blood. He changed course, heart thundering his chest louder than his paws in the snow.

A dark X marked the trunk of a tree a few inches above the snow level. Derek nosed at the bark. The tree carried Stiles’ scent. Derek whimpered. His mate was so clever. Stiles had known that Derek would shift to track him because as a wolf, Derek’s senses were acuter. Stiles had marked the tree low enough to be in Derek’s eye line as he ran through the woods, but also used the one scent Derek would never be able to ignore. The X was drawn in Stiles’ blood.

The cold stung Derek’s nose as he chased Stiles’ scent on the wind. Stiles was completely turned around as his trail headed south, the complete opposite direction of the cabin. At some point, he’d tried to go back, but changed direction when he’d missed the glow of the cabin, as if trying to circle back, completely bypassing it in zero visibility conditions.

Another bloody X marked the trunk of a tree less than a mile from the first. Derek had never been more grateful that his mate was a genius than he was tracking the meandering path of Stiles’ scent rubbed into the bark of trees that he passed. Though his brilliant mate wasn’t quite brilliant enough to stay put and wait for Derek to find him.

Stiles had never been good with waiting, always eager to jump into the fray. His reckless disregard had saved Derek’s life more than once, but it was never easy for Derek to let his mate walk into danger. If Derek had his way, he’d bundle Stiles up, steal him away, and feed him curly fries for the rest of his life far, far away from danger. New York was supposed to have been safe, and for the most part, it was, but that still didn’t stop Stiles from stumbling into trouble.

A third X on a tree drew Derek’s attention. It was fresh. The blood hadn’t dried. Derek paused. A sound on the wind caught his ear, and he tilted his head to the side, listening hard. It was drowned by the raging storm, but undeniable.

The volume and pitch grew as Derek drew closer. Stiles wasn’t shouting Derek’s name to be found. Stiles was screaming.

Derek raced chased the muted voice towards the river. This late in winter, the frozen river would be hidden under a layer of snow. Stiles’ had wanted to go skating at the local pond they’d passed on their way through the nearby town, but the weather hadn’t been cold enough for the ice to have formed thick enough to support weight, and warnings had been posted.

That realization struck Derek in the chest, and he pushed himself to his limit. His muscles ached and burned as he burst through the treeline.

“Derek?” Stiles shouted when he caught sight of Derek on the shore. Stiles clung to the edge of the broken ice, fingers scrambling to pull himself out of the water, but the ice broke around him. “Derek! Derek, help!” He lost his grip and slipped underwater and out of sight.

Derek’s howl was lost in the wind.

Unable to follow Stiles or they’d both be trapped under the ice, Derek pranced on the shore unsure, but he needed to move soon or the prediction Lydia would come true. Derek couldn’t lose Stiles. He couldn’t watch another packmate die. He couldn’t fail his mate… They hadn’t even sealed the bond because Derek wanted to wait until Stiles finished school and graduated college.

A dull thud vibrated through the ice. Stiles beat against the ice.

Derek took a tentative step onto the ice. It creaked under his weight, but didn’t break. His wolf was lighter, though not by much, and more evenly distributed on four legs rather than two. He moved slow tracking the slowing thuds of Stiles’ fist against the ice until his mate was directly below him.

Like from the nature documentary Stiles had forced him to watch one night when he couldn’t sleep, Derek mimicked a polar bear hunting for seals under the ice and snow in the Arctic. He reared up on his hind leg and slammed his front paws down on the ice. The ice cracked under his weight. His paws sank into the water and hit something soft, and he scrambled back to prevent himself from joining Stiles in the water.

Stiles’ favourite red hoodie was a beacon in the water. Derek, the big bad wolf, sank his fangs into the bright red fabric and held Stiles in place so he didn’t drift further along under the ice with the current. The hole was too small.

The dull thuds against the ice slowed. The impact of each strike weakened. Stiles had stopped moving.

Derek couldn’t get Stiles out through the hole. He couldn’t risk shifting either or he’d fall through the ice too. Derek frantically pawed at the edge of the ice, desperately clenching the soggy material that connected him to Stiles between his teeth.

Chunks of ice floated in the hole that Derek had widened to a barely shoulder-width strip. Derek tugged the hoodie until Stiles floated into a better position. His head broke the surface of the water.

Stiles’ eyes were closed and his lips were blue. Derek couldn’t maintain a grip on the hoodie. The fabric ripped. Stiles began to drift under the ice again. In a moment of pure desperation, Derek sank his fangs into Stiles’ shoulder. The coppery tang of his mate’s cold blood flooded his mouth and he gagged. Derek dug his paws into the snow and ice, and pulled, inching back a step at a time. Slowly, Stiles’ limp body slid out of the water, across the ice, and onto the shore.

On solid land, Derek shifted. Nudity meant little, more often than not foregoing clothes in the privacy of their own home or the woods, but temperatures were well below freezing. The howling wind bit at his exposed skin cutting him to the core, and the snow burned on contact. None of that mattered when the absence of Stiles’ heartbeat echoed in his mind.

“Stiles? Baby? Wake up,” Derek pleaded. His hand cupped Stiles’ cold cheek and tilted his head back as he searched his memory for what to do. Stiles would know. Stiles always knew. “Shit. Stiles! Stiles, please.”

Vision blurred, Derek fought the shift that threatened to take control without his anchor grounding him. Stiles was gone. Pinching Stiles’ nose, he pressed his mouth against Stiles’ blue lips and breathed. Nothing happened. He vaguely knew what to do thanks to Stiles’ obsession with research and tendency to ramble to a captive audience.

Derek began chest compressions. The crack of Stiles’ ribs echoed across the frozen river, and Derek choked on the desperate sob that bubbled up his throat. He’d already lost everyone he’d loved, cared for, or protected; Paige, his family, Laura, Peter, Erica, Boyd. Even Cora had left. Stiles was all he had.

Stiles’ chest rose and fell with each new attempt to breathe life into his lifeless body. Tears flowed freely. Moisture clung to his cheeks and froze in his eyelashes. Derek openly sobbed, begging whatever higher power that could hear him as he pumped Stiles’ chest, willing his heart to beat. This couldn’t be the end. Derek couldn’t lose Stiles, not now. Not after everything they had survived together. He couldn’t lose his only family. Not again.

Derek delivered a puff of air. Stiles’ chest shallowly rose and fell, and then a faint thump. And then another. Stiles’ pulse was slow and faint, but it was there. Still, Stiles’ wasn’t breathing.

“Come on, baby,” Derek whispered and breathed into Stiles’ mouth again. He kept going, breathing for Stiles every few seconds until Stiles spat up. Not just water. He vomited violently, retching and gagging until Derek rolled him onto his side.

Stiles didn’t immediately shoot to life completely awake and alert like in movies. He remained unconscious, heartbeat weak and breathing laboured. Derek whined pitifully, nosing at the back of Stiles’ shoulder where his teeth had sunk into Stiles’ skin. The wound bled sluggishly with his renewed heartbeat.

Derek was cold. His limbs were heavy and stiff as he gathered Stiles’ limp body in his arms and huddled him against his chest. He staggered to his feet, joints aching, and stumbled, barely able to support his own weight. The wet clothes had formed a crust of ice and frost, but Stiles barely felt cooler than Derek. Supernatural warmth and healing aside, Derek’s body was shutting down exposed to the elements and his own clothes lost in the woods.

One foot in front of another, Derek tracked his own path through the snow with Stiles heavy in his arms. By the time he reached the glow of the cabin, he trembled under the strain. His bare foot hit a patch of ice on the cabin steps and slipped. His kneecap audibly cracked against the stone step.

His howl ripped through the woods as pain exploded, radiating through his limbs. Derek hunched over, panting hard, but held Stiles tighter to his body, shielding him from harm. His healing factor wasn’t kicking in, but Derek shoved past the pain. At that moment, getting Stiles warm and dry was all that mattered.

Derek collapsed next to the cold fireplace and began the problematic process of stripping wet clothes off an unresponsive body. His hands shook and fumbled with the zipper of Stiles’ jeans and peeled away layers of clothing until Stiles was laying nude and motionless in the middle of the living room. Derek cocooned Stiles in every blanket he collected he could find in the closet, the bedroom, and off the back of the couch until only his face peeked through a tiny hole. But it wasn’t enough. They still needed a fire for warmth, but the wood was still locked in the shed, outside in the storm.

“I’ll be back,” Derek whispered. His voice cracked. “Just hang on for me, okay? I’m gonna take care of you, baby, I promise. I’ll be right back.” He pressed his lips to Stiles’ forehead and detected little to no difference in body temperature between them.

The trip back to the woodshed became an impossible quest the second he stepped outside. Derek shut the cabin door tightly behind him and shifted, but his knee had not healed, and he hobbled on three legs, cutting a path through the snow.

When Derek shifted back, unable to carry firewood on four legs, he collapsed against the side of the shed, so beyond the point of cold that he no longer shivered and trembled under the icy blades of snow tearing at his bare skin. Underfoot, his abandoned clothing crunched in the snow, frozen solid. Feet numb, he barely felt them.

Straining, Derek snapped the lock on the door. The shed offered a brief reprieve from the wind, but ladened with cut logs, he forced himself back into the polar temperatures and followed a trail back to the shelter of the cabin, and Stiles, marked by his own blood against pristine white.

The bones and cartilage of his knee ground and cracked with every step. Derek collapsed beside the cold grate of the fireplace. Firewood rolled across the floor, but he managed to stack two logs against the kindling. His hands shook, movements sluggish, as he struggled to strike a match. The first three fizzled and failed when he dropped them, but the crumpled newspaper miraculously caught fire on his fourth attempt.

The flames licked the wood. The blooming spots in Derek’s vision darkened as he slumped over. Distantly, a phone buzzed. The vibrations reverberated through the wood floor of the cabin under Derek’s ear. Gasping for air, Derek stared at the lump of unmoving blankets and listened to the slow, quivering thump of Stiles’ heartbeat in the growing dark.

When Derek came too, he was warm. Too warm. He was bound tightly, arms restricted, and pressed against another nude and equally sweaty body. Nose nestled at the juncture of neck and shoulder, he inhaled deeply and whimpered. “Stiles…”

“Hey, herowolf,” Stiles croaked.

Derek opened his eyes and tilted his head back. Stiles was watching him with heavy-lidded, tired eyes and a faint smile. He was still alarmingly pale, but his lips were no longer blue, and his cheeks pleasantly flushed from the heat of the fire. A haphazardly taped bandaged stained a dark red covered his shoulder where Derek’s fangs and sunk into the skin and dragged him from the frozen river.

“You’re here,” Derek said, unable to reconcile the truth when he could still hear the empty silence of Stiles frozen on the ground. He tried to reach up to cup Stiles’ cheek or count his fingers to ensure this wasn’t a dream, but his arms were pinned to his sides.

Stiles and Derek were snuggled together, Derek half on top of Stiles, and wrapped in layers of blankets while the lit fire crackled merrily in the fireplace beside them. Somehow, Stiles had dragged his unconscious body into the cocoon of warmth and slapped a bandage on his own shoulder. His boyfriend was perfect.

Derek swallowed the lump forming in his throat, and the corner of his eyes stung.

“Shit. Hey. Hey, Derek. I’m here. I’m still here.” Stiles struggled to hug him, but his arms weren’t cooperating, and his movement was as limited as Derek’s. “You found me. You saved me.”

“I didn’t.” Derek wormed his hands under Stiles’ back and clung desperately to his boyfriend, inhaling his scent and whimpering like a terrified little pup. Under any other circumstance, the pitched keen would have been humiliating, but Derek instincts were on edge. ”You died. You were gone. I lost you. You were gone.”

“I’m sorry. Derek, I’m so sorry,” Stiles croaked and sniffled. “Shit, Der. I can’t believe you found me. I was so scared. It hurt so much. Felt like my head was going to explode and my lungs would burst. And all I could think of was leaving you behind.”

Derek nosed at Stiles’ throat, listening to the racing pulse under the skin. “Don’t leave me again. Please don’t leave me alone,” he begged, and Stiles shivered under him. He lay his head over Stiles’ heart and listened to the sluggish, quavering beat under his ear until his eyes grew heavy with fatigue. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Stiles let out a shaky breath. “Can’t get rid of me that easily. Guess we’ve both cheated death, huh. Bet he’s cheesed.”

The cabin fell quiet as they lay tangled together listening to the crackle and pop of dry wood. Derek stared at the flames, Stiles’ heartbeat under his ear, and growled softly until Stiles’ chest shook with a small huffed chuckle. At some point, Derek would have to disentangle himself from the safety of their nest of warmth to add a log to the fire and rebandage Stiles’ poorly wrapped shoulder, but for now, he was high on the heady scent of mate and home.

“Thank you.” Stiles’ voice was barely above a whisper, but the sound echoed through Derek’s mind like a gunshot.

Derek shifted his weight, attempting to prop his upper body up on his elbow enough to hover over his boyfriend. His leg twinged, but there was no jolt of agonizing pain which meant his cracked kneecap had healed after he’d lost consciousness. He watched the dance of firelight reflected in the deep pools of Stiles’ golden honey eyes.

“You anchor me,” Derek said. Stiles’ lips parted with an inaudible gasp, and his heart stuttered in his chest. He knew Stiles had always suspected that his anchor had changed. “Stiles... Mieczyslaw Stilinski, to lose you is to lose my humanity. Will you mate with me?”

**Author's Note:**

> A stand-alone fic, but also the continued the story of Worry. 
> 
> Trigger Warning: Temporary Major Character Death
> 
> You can stalk me on Tumblr here: [Always the Little Spoon](http://always-the-little-spoon.tumblr.com/)


End file.
